Lessons in Leadership

If leading other women is one of the desires of your heart, or if leadership is something others are asking of you, consider a few principles drawn from J. Oswald Sanders’s classic book, Spiritual Leadership. 

• A leader is a follower—The adage is true that to be a leader you must first be a follower. Leadership is a discipline, and it is in the process of being a faithful follower that you gain the discipline necessary for effective leadership.
• A leader is a pray-er—Prayer brings to leadership the power and energy of the Holy Spirit. Missionary and leader Hudson Taylor was convinced that “it is possible to move [others], through God, by prayer alone.”
• A leader is an initiator—It is only the authentic leader who is willing to take risks and move out courageously as “venturesomeness” is applied to vision. (Drawn from J. Oswald Sanders, Spiritual Leadership, Chicago: Moody Press, 1967).

If you’re looking for a model of a leader of women, God shows you in Miriam one of His very special women of faith. As the Bible explains, “All the women went out after her.” Miriam faithfully followed and assisted her two brothers, Aaron and Moses, as they led God’s people to freedom. As a prophetess and a pray-er, Miriam was filled with the Holy Spirit, who inspired her words. Moved by God’s miraculous defeat of the Egyptian army in the midst of the Red Sea, Miriam “took the timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.” (See Micah 6:4; Exodus 15:20.)

May God’s Spirit at work in you and the example of Miriam encourage and inspire you to love and serve the women in your church as you pray about leadership.

Read Lessons in Leadership on Elizabeth & Jim George.